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How Many Cameras Do You Need?
POV (Point-of-view) characters are the cameras recording the action in a book. Like television and movies, specialty cameras in writing may be close-up exclusive, close first person, or used in panning shots, omniscient third person. Different genres required different cameras. In movies, science fiction now demands the Steadicam while horror like a bouncing “you are there” feel of handheld video. In books, first person is popular for urban fantasy and superhero while epic fantasy likes third person with switching POVs between cast members.
When dealing with multiple cameras, POVs, how much is too much? Marcy Kennedy addresses the question during her guest appearance on Writers Helping Writers via a post entitled “How to Decide How Many POV Characters Our Book Needs“.
Central questions to figure out which POV are needed:
- Who is the protagonist?
- Would it improve the story to include scenes from the antagonist’s viewpoint?
- What’s the scope of our story?
- Which characters play a key role at the climax of the novel?
To see these questions (and more) expanded, visit the posting here: http://writershelpingwriters.net/2015/11/how-to-decide-how-many-pov-characters-our-book-needs/